Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

My latest fun on the Jones Family History is to take the life of some of Dads cousins. I am starting with one from each family – (In total Dad had 37 paternal cousins…. WOW!!)
Today’s story is about Reginald Vincent Hayes the 4th child of Minnie Jones, the sister of our Alfred Victor. (She was 12 years older than Pop.) Minnie married Richard John “Charles” Hayes in Gympie in 1903. Minnie & Charles moved to Boulder, Western Australia in 1910. Boulder was a town in the Western Australian Goldfields 595 kilometres east of Perth and bordering onto the town of Kalgoorlie in the Eastern Goldfields region. It is now part of Kalgoorlie. Charles was a miner so worked in the Goldfields. Wonder what he did? I am wondering how the family travelled from Gympie to Perth? Probably by boat or train – interesting it would have taken 6 changes of train to do that journey because of the different gauges of the railway lines!
Per Minnies Burial record she had 9 children: John, Harley, Francis, Victor, Minley, Eileen, Reginald, Frederick & Phyllis. I have found information on all the boys but nothing on the girls as yet!
Their son Reginald was born 26 Feb 1912. His father died in 1926 when he was just 14 years old. I have not yet found out what happened but am wondering if it was a mining accident.
The first record I found for Reginald is an article in the Western Argus of 26 Mar 1935 where he 23 years of age and pleaded guilty in the Boulder Police Court to a charge of having ridden a bicycle on footpaths in Boulder, and was fined £2 with costs.
In 1937 aged 25, per Electoral Roll, he was living at 71a Wittenoom St, Boulder with his Mum and brother Leo Francis. Both men are miners!
On 2-Oct-1937 Reginald married Alma Hannah Marshall at St. Matthew's Church, Boulder. His brother John was his best-man. The reception was held at a local hall where his Mother, Minnie, welcomed the guests with Alma’s mother.
On 29 Apr 1943 Reginald joined the Australian Army (Service Number WX36844) and served for 2 ½ years. His record showed that his posting at Discharge was with 29 Works Company! I have discovered that during the Second World War, the Australian Army established 39 Employment Companies, totalling by war’s end about 15,000 men. While the name of these army units occasionally varied – Employment Company, Labour Company, Works Company, Labour Unit, Labour Corps – their function did not. They were established to ensure that the Australian Defence Force had a large corpus of soldiers dedicated to essential labouring tasks, the hard physical labour needed to maintain the war effort and support the fighting forces. Quite a story on this effort on the following link. http://www.yosselbirstein.org/.../Forgotten_Soldiers.pdf
At end of war Reginald returned to Boulder as a Miner per the electoral Rolls. He lived at 6e York St, Boulder until at least 1980 with his wife. They had at least 5 children.
Reginald died 29-Sep-1992 still living at Boulder and is buried at Esperance lawn Cemetery with his mother, Minnie.